The world economy is dependent upon energy generated by annual combustion of more than one million years of fossil accumulations such as coal, natural gas and oil. Present practices for producing electricity from fossil and nuclear fueled central power plants are very inefficient. Most electricity is produced by driving a generator with a heat engine such as a steam turbine or gas turbine that is fueled by coal and to a lesser extent by natural gas, oil, or nuclear fuels.
Original production of fossil hydrocarbons such as coal, oil and natural gas started with photosynthesis at a time in the distant past between 60 million and 500 million years ago. Biomass produced by photosynthesis is less than 1% efficient and only a small amount of biomass became anaerobically processed in geological circumstances that resulted in preservation of fossil fuels. Thus burning a fossil fuel in a power plant that claims to be 40% to 60% efficient actually provides far less than 0.5% conversion of solar energy into electricity.
Enormous consumption of fossil fuels has enabled the U.S. to lead the world in economic development. Some 200 billion barrels of domestic oil and more or less equal energy equivalents as natural gas and coal have been burned. About 5% of the world's six billion humans in the U.S. consume 25% of world oil production, but U.S. reserves have been depleted to only 2% of total world reserves. Natural gas production has failed to keep pace with demand that has shifted from oil. Coal is now shipped great distances by rail car and slurry pipelines from cleaner mine deposits in efforts to meet environmental protection standards.
Ageing U.S. power plants import nuclear fuel and world supplies of fissionable fuels are declining in close correlation to the fossil hydrocarbon fuels. It would require more than 1,600 nuclear power plants to produce the 95 Quads of energy now consumed yearly by the U.S. Nuclear power is not a viable option.
Dwellings such as homes, office buildings and manufacturing plants typically purchase electricity from fossil fueled central power plants and use a fluid fuel such as natural gas or propane for space heating and water heating. Typical central power plants reject some 50-70% of the heat released by fossil fuel combustion as an accepted necessity of the thermodynamic cycles utilized by electricity utilities. If dwellings had access to the energy rejected from distant central power plants, virtually all of the space and water heating could be accomplished without incurring the cost, pollution, and resource depletion now incurred by burning a fossil fuel at the dwelling to produce these needs.
Most of the world's population is deprived of the standard of living typical in the U.S. because of the high cost of electricity production, water heating, and air conditioning as provided by central power plants, liquefied petroleum or oil fired water heaters, and electric powered air conditioners. As easily exploited fossil fuel supplies are depleted, conservation of energy becomes increasingly important to all nations.
Much of the world population suffers from occasional or incessant diseases due to air and water born pathogens and in other instances from inorganic poisons such as radon, arsenic, and other heavy metals. Considerable loss of food value or contamination results from attack by rodents, bugs and inappropriate food preservation practices and causes disease and malnutrition. These problems have proven to be extremely difficult to solve.
Within the next decade the global economy must rapidly develop sustainable energy supplies or accept precipitous productivity losses. It is immoral to accept the hardships that will follow without a sustainable economy.